


Been down this road.

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: Settle in and find your home [20]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Maria Hill has several back-up plans for Cthulhu, Pepper runs a super-efficient company, Stark Industries has the best HR, Steve's PR team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 09:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: It's almost creepily like Monique is reading his mind when she gets the look of someone who's just finished one thing and started another and says, "Actually . . . " drawing the word out.Matías gives her the encouraginghmm?noise that goes next, and she looks up, smiling slightly."Have anything scheduled right now?" she asks, making Matías blink."Nothing that involves anyone else," he replies, and the smile widens as she tucks her phone back into her pocket, and moves to stand up."Well then," she says. "Since it also looks like you're finished, and God just parted the clouds to send down a miracle cancellation, I'm going to take advantage of what isprobablygoing to be the only real opportunity for the next month and hijack you right upstairs to meet Maria."It's not like Matías coulddisagree.





	Been down this road.

**Author's Note:**

> Follows hard on the heels of [the previous part.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12041487)
> 
> For other reference, this is the day after ["here you're known"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5012698); the reason that the earlier appointment was Cancelled and JARVIS went " . . . yeah no we're putting another day in there at least" is in fact the entire melt down around discovering Why Does Food Not Work.

During the lead up to the trial, Matías deleted almost all but his private social media accounts - his public Twitter, his semi-public Facebook, his LinkedIn, his Instagram, anything that anyone could find or talk to him on without him explicitly approving their access first. 

Or, more specifically, anything his ex-boss's wife could use to harass him on, since she appeared to have way too much time on her hands and liked making sock-puppet accounts. 

He supposes she may still be around, but at this point he not only still has the restraining order, he's pretty confident that if she shows up and starts interfering with his job, SI's likely to go with the philosophy _there's no such thing as overkill, just 'open fire' and 'reload'_ and he'll just let them do that. 

For all of a split second he wonders if he should let them know about how she was internet-stalking him before . . . and then he figures that's probably just about as redundant as it comes. Given the internet-intel machine-made-of-people he'd been introduced to yesterday, Matías figures the likelihood of his entire internet history not having been _thoroughly vetted_ is pretty small. 

Fortunately he's never been stupid enough to put anything online that would actually get him into shit. Some stuff, under privacy protections, that he'd _rather_ not talk to the whole world about, sure. But it's all solidly the kind of thing that if it ever did come out, you just look at the person giving you shit and demand what the hell they were doing breaking into your accounts, and of course they found you doing the same little things everyone does like white lies to your ex because you just can't deal with them - who _cares_?

As a result, he's not worried about anything SI might have found. And since they undoubtedly already know about the harassment, he's not going to bother too much about it. But for this job especially he's going to _need_ to be right out there and involved, in a way that his completely-locked Twitter account and almost-secret-locked-down Facebook (the one he keeps almost entirely to keep track of his sister and niecelet) don't let him be. 

So his second morning in his new office, with his second coffee of the day and a cinnamon bun secured from The Fuelling Station, Matías sets up a suite of new public options. Not quote-unquote "officially" as Captain America's publicist or anything like that, but the kind of stuff he wouldn't mind someone finding from his LinkedIn page. Which he also puts back up, with company filled in but specific job-title left very vague. 

New public Twitter, new Instagram, new semi-public Facebook, and then linking them all together in one way or another, and making a first round of re-following the kind of accounts he used to keep on his feed just to keep an eye on the world. 

There. The world could once again look forward to his documenting his lunch and complaining about the weather. 

Then he spends about ten minutes putting a sanitized summary of the last few days on his completely private Facebook, if only to stop the messages, emails and other tags full of family and family-adjacent friends asking him about this new job they hear he has. He leaves out exactly who he's supposedly managing PR for, and parenthetically notes for those who know that he'd rather not be specific at this time. 

All in all he'd really like to be a bit more settled in before he starts dealing with more than his immediate family losing their minds over this. 

There's also a very sleek, very stylish looking package and accompanying packet on his desk, which it turns out contains his Work Phone, because he'd ticked _yes_ to the question of whether he wanted to hook up permissions on a phone he provided or if he'd like to sign into being part of the pre-release test-pool for SI's own phones and tablets and OS. Matías prefers to keep a work phone physically separate from his personal phone, frankly, and given what he's already plugged into in this office he might as well go for his new employer's portable, as well. 

His life can keep living on his iPhone and iMac for now but he can't see any reason not to take advantage of a full native suite at work. So a StarkPhone seemed intelligent. 

Although it's not actually called a StarkPhone. Matías remembers watching the launch interviews for this stuff and Stark himself dismissively saying _because that would be fucking boring_ in an incredibly irritable voice, and the show even having to bleep it, producers probably blessing their seven-second delay. 

Instead the whole suite is called _Resolve_ and Stark's answer to _why_ had been _because there's six different puns in there_ and a challenge for people to find them all. 

That had lit up Twitter and Facebook for a while. Matías had figured out "resolve" as in the quality of steadfastness, and "resolve" as in "resolve the problem", and "resolve" as in "re-solve" or solve the problem again, and one of his then-coworkers had hazarded "resolve" as in "the picture gets clearer", like when snow "resolves" into clear image on a TV set. And then Matías had figured he'd wasted enough time trying to figure out whether Stark had been hyperbolic or not. 

The whole brand is doing pretty well, though. There's the Resolve (with Resolve OS), which is a smartphone or superphone or whatever the hell they're calling them these days, and there's the Resolve Tablet, and the Resolve Light, and Matías actually thinks that one's pretty damn clever, as it's sort of a bare-bones version of the main Resolve at about just under two-thirds the cost, pay-as-you-go. 

It still gets you the internet, and phone service, and texting, and a bunch of apps, but it doesn't have the voice-command system, there's stuff like straight up games or hi-rez, high-powered programs that you only really need if you're really into using touch-screen shit it won't run quite as well, and the speakers aren't as good. There's a few other technical things about it that Matías gathers aren't quite as impressive and unlike the actual Resolve, you can only drop it from a two-storey building and expect it to survive, instead of a twelve-storey building. 

It's billed for the minimalist, for tween's first smartphone, and as a budget option, and at least compared to shit like the current iPhones, it is. 

And then the coup de grace is, of course, that in addition to having native apps galore, and active sponsorship for people who want to develop new ones, ResolveOS will run just about anything made for iOS or AndroidOS, just like that, walk in and download, because what else do you expect from Tony Stark. 

Apparently Apple, especially, is a bit upset about that but since nothing about the Resolve is actually using patented or specific technology to do it, they can't do anything about it. There were rumblings about suing but they dropped off really fast. 

What Matías unpacks is actually the Resolve Heavy, which actually isn't physically very heavy, but goes in exactly the opposite direction from the Resolve Light and if Matías wants to hook up a wireless keyboard and monitor and then reboot the thing the right way, is basically a full, working computer. And apparently it can be dropped off the Tower and survive, although it's still in beta because Stark wants to be able to drive a tank over it. 

It's probably way more than Matías actually needs, but that's part of being the test group. He sets it up to download his settings off the work computer, for now. 

Finally, because it's still only seven-forty-five, he gets up, stands back, and really looks around the office, this time with an eye that's not only proprietary, but looking to figure out how to use it best. 

Sleeping on it had at least sorted out some of the chaos in his head. Matías woke up this morning with a lot less _oh my god what the hell_ on his brain, and a lot more gears in his head getting some actual traction, pulling his thoughts along. And since there's no point wasting time if he doesn't have to, he might as well get things going. All kinds of things. 

He's got the next few days pretty well mapped out in his head. As far as the launch goes, the best plan is to stick mostly with what the interim team's already worked out: relatively soft, this is the day everything's allowed to go out on the shelves, here's the press-releases and the contact points, brief statements, now let's all step back and wait to see what inevitable stumbles and wrinkles there's going to be. 

Hopefully not too many. But there's no such thing as a completely smooth launch. If you think there is, it's just because the wrinkle hasn't shown up yet and it's probably going to be a doozy. 

The only real change is sticking Matías in as the nexus of it all, instead of it going to the temporary team - and the reason they do that now, scrambling a bit in the last few days, is because that way there's no public-facing change. 

But that actually means that today and even tomorrow - pending moment of Meeting Captain America notwithstanding, although Matías has to admit it's kind of . . . well, it's withstanding - aren't going to be too bad. It's whether or not things go right once everything's live, and how he handles it if not, that's going to be exciting. 

Not that he doesn't have plenty to do today and tomorrow, too. Like go over everything as close as possible so that he doesn't _look_ like he came in on this yesterday. 

It's just . . . it's like a relay race, really. It's not that the moment of passing the baton isn't itself a bit of a fiddly manoeuver, it's just that what matters is what the other runner managed before it, and what you're going to pull out afterwards. You can't really do much about the before, and they can't do that much about the afterwards, so in that transitional moment you just kind of go for it and hope it works. 

Or something like that, anyway. 

And it's seven-forty-five and nobody else he needs to do transition-y things with is in yet, so for the moment, Matías takes the time to look at his office and figure out what, if anything, he wants to change. 

Fifteen minutes later he hopes they really are serious about _wanting_ him to ask for stuff, and also knows that as Ofelia finishes up her on-call shift she's laughing at him and doesn't know why, because he's got a new sketching app on his tablet and he's crabbed in a messy scribble of redesign. Because the minute he stops being awed by his good luck (not that he isn't still awed by his good luck, but still, putting that aside) Matías remembers all his actual work-habits, quirks, and preferences. 

So the thing's full of notes like "something like a white-board and something like a cork-board" with dimensions noted, and "coffee table" and a couple other things, plus a projector; and then in a different colour he's got stuff that's mostly going to come from him, the touches that make an office feel less like a standard issue and more like a space you actually own. Then some tentative stuff like "could we maybe do some other colour than off-white for the walls." 

He's really not sure where the line between failing to take advantage of what's offered and being greedy jerk actually is here. He'll have to check up with someone. 

Matías actually runs into Deb coming back from his second trip to The Fuelling Station, around eight-thirty, and she hijacks him into her office until sometime around noon. 

Not that it feels that long - the time just frigging flies. When her alarm goes off at twelve-fifteen, announcing lunch, Matías finds himself shaking his head. 

At Deb's quizzical look he says, "Superstition. Or maybe paranoia. I actually feel okay about this," and he gestures with the tablet as a stand in for all of it, "so naturally I'm also wondering what huge huge thing I've missed that's going to come down on me and punish me for hubris." 

He feels okay admitting that, too. That's either a good sign, or a sign he's really misread the place, and he supposes they'll just find out which. 

She smiles, the kind of smile that acknowledges a mutual experience, and says, "Well if it helps, one, I don't think you're missing anything huge, and also two, around here it's a definite institutional preference for good planning and mutual support all the way through a project, so no one person is stuck being Atlas or Hercules. It's not like we prefer the tortoise _over_ the hare," she says, solemnly, "it's more we like to eschew both and go with, like, the elephant, for consistent yet intelligent endurance over long distances." 

Matías has to laugh. 

"The point being, you're coming in on something we already over-engineered for a non-optimal situation - it's just all the better if you're the visible front from the get go, with this," she goes on, confirming his earlier guess, "so that nobody forms any other expectations." 

It is 100% latent insecurity and maybe a bit more imposter syndrome that makes Matías not-really-joke, "Assuming you don't have to find someone else because Captain Rogers decides I'm just that irritating." 

Deb actually snorts. "I do not see that happening," she says, firmly. "You should go find something to eat, though - I usually spend about a half hour at the gym now, before I find my lunch." 

It's pretty polite as dismissals go, but it's also very clear she doesn't want him to ask if she wants company. 

 

Matías decides to branch out a bit for lunch, wandering a floor down and a wing or two over until he finds a little Ethiopian nook. Being as he's never had Ethiopian before, he decides to go with that, and while he's eating he works on the last bits of setting up the work-phone and getting everything to do with work _off_ his personal iPhone. 

He does notice that someone's slowed near him, but he's not that far from the door so he doesn't think anything of it until a female voice says, " _You_ would be the new guy at PR, wouldn't you," startling him and making him look up. 

And he looks up at what is definitely one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen in his life and one who's not only been blessed with gorgeousness written into her genetic code, but knows _exactly_ how to use every part of the beauty machine that women get saddled with to her best advantage. And that is a _skill_. 

Between his Ofelia, his sister Michaela, and various girlfriends, Matías has learned to fully and completely appreciate exactly how makeup, clothing and the nebulous air of "style" work, and how much work they _take_ , and how much the general cultural gestalt is only _starting_ to let them point it out. 

And how it only gets exponentially more work and less wiggle room the further you are from perfect white skin and thick straight hair, preferably blonde so you can do anything with it, and a thin-enough-but-not-too-thin body, without too many obvious muscles, because "fit" and "feminine" only really go together when you're talking about keeping the fat off. 

He paid attention, and he remembered. The last time he got caught thinking "no-makeup" makeup was actually, well, _no makeup_ , he'd been a junior in college. 

The funny thing is, not only has it been good for his, call it being a decent human being, but it's been _amazing_ how much the women he's been with or even just been around have appreciated him noticing the work, understanding that it's work and how the work _works_ , and admiring it. He's gotten more dates out of knowing the names of makeup brands than he can count. 

He almost feels like he should write a book some time, some kind of anti-PUA shit: _try complimenting her eye-shadow, you dingus, she worked hard on that._

On the other hand it's probably not worth it, since in his experience the real problem with most PUA-spouting guys is that they don't actually want a date with a human woman, they want a pliable sex-bot who'll make them look better to other guys. He remembers running Michaela through the PUA playbook when it started to get attention, specifically so he could say _any guy who pulls this shit on you does not get your number. Ever. Because he's garbage._

The point is, he knows whereof he speaks. Or thinks, anyway, since for a split second he's a bit too stunned to say a thing. 

There's a lot to read in a woman's look, especially if she's clearly playing with that look on purpose. For the woman standing in front of him, style and presentation are clearly, and clearly meant to be, an outward show of her composure, competence and self-control and wow does it work. 

Her skin's pretty dark, which just means that the way she's used subtle gold and copper in her eyeshadows makes her equally dark eyes luminous; and she clearly knows that between her skin-tone and the makeup and the tri-metal twisted rope jewelry she's wearing, what would be a fairly dull and safe indigo suit with wide-leg slacks and a perfectly tailored jacket takes on a contrast that highlights everything else, becoming this sort of deep-vibrant background to all of her other touches. It's pretty amazing. 

Her hair's twisted into very fine dreadlocks, and then the top half's pulled back into what Matías thinks is a couple crosses of braiding, but then loose with the rest pulled over one shoulder, and Matías does not even want to guess how much that hairstyle costs in money or time but it's clearly worth it. 

The overall effect is like an incredibly beautiful princess happened to deign to come down and work in someone's office, and isn't going to make a big thing about it, but is still definitely a princess. 

While he thinks all of this, a subroutine in Matías' head kicks in hard to remind him that staring is rude and creepy and also that she did ask him a question. It's even kind enough to remind him what the question is, and line up an answer for him to actually say. It's nice to have these kinds of things down to a habit. 

"I would be, yes," he says, and his instincts, seeing that his forebrain is still a bit busy being awed, remind him that standing up to say hello to a stranger, particularly a female stranger who might outrank you in company hierarchy, is never a bad idea. 

Neither is offering your name, the same instincts prompt, and he says, "Matías Ortiz." 

She's already starting to hold out her hand and smiles, following that up with, "Monique Grant. I work with the Director of Internal Operations." 

Matías lines up the name with the quick précis from Mimi yesterday and lines up _ex-SHIELD_ with _used to work directly for Director Fury_ and also definitely grants Mimi wholehearted agreement on the _could make millions as a model_. Hopefully, however, she's making a hell of a lot _here and now_ and dealing with much less crap from the people she works with. 

His forebrain is starting to come around again but his instincts still decide to pick up the slack; that's fine, as he's okay with them prompting him to say, "Pleasure to meet you," to go with the handshake (similar to Yolanda's in its dismissal of even the thought of getting into a grip-test) and then to add, "and I really hope I haven't missed out on a message letting me know I should be somewhere." 

It's not really funny, and the sudden flare of panic is absolutely real, but she still grants him the tiny bit of reassuring laughter in her answer of, "No, I was just getting steps," she makes a small move to indicate her one wrist, "and happened to look over here as I was walking past. Mind if I sit down?" 

Matías realizes the bracelet is actually one of those FitBit watch things, just with a replacement band of twisted copper-gold-silver; it's really nice. But he also dismisses that and gestures to the other chair at his small table. "Please do," he says. "I was just separating my work-phone and my personal phone while I ate." 

"Smart man," Monique says, as she takes the seat. "I've never quite been able to make that work, but I really wish I could." 

Matías has a vague suspicion that this is at least in part because being direct assistant to SHIELD's number one, and even now being the same for Maria Hill at SI, means that you don't necessarily have a personal life to have a separate phone _for_. But he's not gauche enough to say that. 

"It helps to have reasonably sized pockets available in most of your clothes," Matías offers instead, and this laugh is more genuine than the other one. 

"Now _that_ is the goddamn truth," Monique agrees, as he sets them both aside. "How are you settling in?"

They chat for a few minutes without a lot of substance beyond ordinary colleagues-getting-to-know-each-other, or at least her getting to know him. Not that she's cagey or anything, but Matías doesn't really feel like he knows that much more about her, as such, than he did when they started. 

He does have the undeniable feeling he's being assessed, but there's no hostility to it, no sense of being, oh, _graded_. Just that he's a new feature of the landscape and she's having a look. Because she always has a look, and this part of the landscape is particularly important to her. 

Matías recalls what Roy said about ex-SHIELD people and being a bit attached to Captain America, and wonders if he should pencil in mental space for every ex-SHIELD person working here who can manage it coming over to have a good look at him. Granted, Monique had lots of other reasons, but it's just something that goes across his mind. He wouldn't blame them, or mind, but if he made that mental note he might not trip over it. 

For his part, Matías is not actually sure how much he's managed to determine about Monique Grant beyond she's probably just as terrifyingly smart and competent as she is gorgeous. 

But then on the third hand, does he really need to? That's probably more than enough for him to do his job. 

After a couple minutes she interrupts a light discussion of moving into new offices (one where she's already confirmed that no, he should go right down to what kind of light-bulbs he wants used if that's going to make any difference to him) by saying, "Uhp! - hold that thought," and holds up one finger as she fishes her phone out of her jacket pocket with the other hand and then looks at it, swiping through some things, with the look of someone who's getting new and potentially pertinent information. 

Then she's typing with a suddenly thoughtful look, and Matías takes the moment to establish for himself that he has, in fact, totally finished his lunch, and that he might as well finish up what phone-transfer stuff is left in his office. Or later, at home. 

It's almost creepily like Monique is reading his mind when she gets the look of someone who's just finished one thing and started another and says, "Actually . . . " drawing the word out. 

Matías gives her the encouraging _hmm?_ noise that goes next, and she looks up, smiling slightly. 

"Have anything scheduled right now?" she asks, making Matías blink. 

"Nothing that involves anyone else," he replies, and the smile widens as she tucks her phone back into her pocket, and moves to stand up. 

"Well then," she says. "Since it also looks like you're finished, and God just parted the clouds to send down a miracle cancellation, I'm going to take advantage of what is _probably_ going to be the only real opportunity for the next month and hijack you right upstairs to meet Maria." 

It's not like Matías could _disagree_. 

 

Getting to Maria Hill's office is a bit of a hike. 

To start with, you get off the elevator in a hallway and go in through a set of frosted glass doors that look somehow more solid and substantial than glass doors should be able to look. That puts you in a pear-shaped lounge-lobby-coffee-station-gathering-place that Matías isn't quite sure how to name. 

It almost feels like the designer was told to take the "water-cooler as socializing place in the office" concept and told to enable it, give it a nice comfy home, and add coffee and healthy snacks. The seating isn't quite couches or arm-chairs, isn't quite the kind of thing you'd want to have if you were going to spend hours sitting there, but instead is the kind of ottoman-as-seat clustered around a coffee-table and bistro-sized tables and chairs that you'd have for people who might need to talk for half an hour or so, and who are seriously unlikely to have time to get all the way out to one of the main concourses and eat lunch at one of the restaurants or kiosks there. 

There's a very young-looking man and woman talking in low voices, over in the corner by the sink, kettle and high-tech coffee machine. They've got the slightly anxious but Coping With It look that screams _intern! intern! intern!_ as loudly as any klaxon. Matías wonders what kind of quals you'd need to _intern_ in this office. 

Both of them look up when Matías and Monique walk in, Matías unconsciously holding the door for Monique, and then try to pretend they're not watching them walk through to the short hallway. 

The colours are almost unexpected: instead of bland safe beiges and whites, or even Strong Bold Colours, the walls are a very cool, mid-dark designer grey with blue undertones, with very dark browns for the chairs and ottomans and a kind of dark grey-cream for the table-tops and counter-tops. What Matías first thinks are paintings he realizes as he walks past are actually screens - just screens that happen to be very thin, well-formed, and currently showing really nicely done landscape or abstract art. Presumably they can show whatever you want, though, which would be a good way to make sure you're keeping everyone's attention on the crisis at hand when there is a crisis. 

Actually for all that this place looks cozy and very Comfortable Office now, Matías realizes, you could make it into an active command centre pretty fast. 

There's a couple of doors off the short hallway that Matías thinks lead to conference rooms, but he doesn't have a lot of time to look and besides, he is trying not to rubberneck. At least, he's trying not to be obvious about it. 

The short hallway opens up again into an octagon of space with a receptionist's desk sitting facing the hallway and firmly between that hallway and what's obviously Maria Hill's office, as it's the only one where the two doors take up the whole side of the octagon. The others have single doors to the double door, and weirdly some of them appear to have transparent glass walls and a glass door, so that you can see through to the inside and the varied layouts and set-ups of the people working in them, and the others are the same colour as the general walls and have black doors. 

Except then as Matías watches one of the occupied offices with transparent glass doors suddenly has the outer wall turn opaque and settle in to look just like the other walls, and the door turn black. 

And that is both amazing, creepy and - it occurs to him - probably useful. He wonders how the hell you do it, and what the walls are made of, because they don't _look_ weird. At least, not right now. 

The receptionist's desk is made of a wood that's so dark brown it's almost, but not quite black, and the tiny woman behind it has her black hair in an actual crown of braids, which is kind of fantastic. 

Matías can't tell how old she is. She _looks_ like she's young enough that a bartender would laugh her fake ID out of his bar, which means she could be anything from her mid-twenties to nearly fifty, because Matías knows how _that_ one goes, and is also willing to bet big money that she got tired of people telling her she'd be grateful for her Youthful Looks when she got older at least ten years ago. 

Even if she's only twenty four. 

She's wearing a really sharp-looking dark blue jacket over a white high-necked shirt with a kind of Victorian-y set of ruffles around the throat and could probably play The Innocent, Wholesome Teenage Daughter in any three dramas you care to name. There's a hands-free receiver in her ear, but smaller and less intrusive than most that Matías's seen in his time. 

As they walk up, Monique points to Hill's office with what's apparently a silent question, because the tiny woman shakes her head. 

"On her way up," she says, her voice pitched lower than you'd expect for how she looks. "I can - " 

One of the opaque doors opens and a tall, gangly man with salt-and-pepper hair leans out, one hand on the door and one on the doorframe, both elbows braced and all the motion sharp and abrupt. The man's face lights up when he sees Monique, and then immediately falls when he sees Matías - or rather, Matías figures, when he sees that Monique is with someone and thus presumably has something to do that involves that someone and can't be hijacked. 

After all he doesn't recognize the guy so he's not sure why the guy would be unhappy to see him, specifically. 

"Five minutes?" the man says, bolstering that assumption and holding up one hand with all the fingers splayed like he's adding punctuation to a plea. 

"I can take this," says the tiny receptionist, almost immediately after the other man's voice falls off his words, indicating with her pen - or possibly stylus - that by _this_ she means Matías. Monique shoots her a grateful look and then tilts her head at the man leaning out of his office. 

"Five minutes, Gatler," she says, holding up her own hand in mirror. "Or I give _you_ the ANTAC - " (Matías assumes it's an acronym, anyway, though it's not one he recognizes) " - meeting next time." 

The man - presumably Gatler - puts both hands together and glances up as if making a prayer of gratitude and disappears back into his office. 

"Sorry - duty calls," Monique says, flashing Matías a quick smile as she moves to that office door. "Nice to meet you, I'm sure I'll see you around." 

Then she's stepped in and the door's closed. 

The receptionist looks politely expectant at Matías, but this time he _knows_ he's being assessed, and that she's waiting to see if he looks flustered and lost, or if he looks annoyed and put out, or if he takes door number three, whatever door number three happens to be. 

He goes for making his own door number three up, extending his hand and saying, "Hi. Matías Ortiz. Ms Grant said there was an unexpected slice of time that's popped up for Director Hill and strongly recommended I follow her up here for it." 

That at least saves him from _disapproval_ , he thinks, and she takes his hand and shakes it while he exerts more effort than usual to make damn sure he _doesn't_ squeeze too hard. She really is tiny - barely five feet tall if that, and porcelain-delicate. And her handshake goes with that, so the last thing Matías wants is to come off as overbearing or rude. 

"Winter Malone," she says, with a small but genuine smile, "I'm the receptionist here. Ms Hill's just on her way up from the car, so if you come with me I'll just let you in to wait for her." 

"I really appreciate it," Matías says, following her as she pushes the door open. He _almost_ misses it, but catches at the last second just how carefully flat she's put her palm against the door and realizes: that must be a palm-print scanner. 

A smart person - and Matías at least tries to make sure he counts as one - would take this moment to reflect that being receptionist _here_ is probably a much more involved job than being one anywhere else. Ms Malone more or less controls communications access to Hill and potentially most of the rest of the office, and that's a big deal. 

He doesn't wonder at being allowed to wait in the office with nobody in it. To start with he is absolutely sure this entire wing is being monitored. He's pretty sure someone like Hill would _want_ it monitored and recorded and also that by this point she'd be so used to being monitored and taped and scrutinized every second that it'd be a non-issue. 

And as Malone lets him in and gestures for him to sit on one of the spare, sleek two-seat couches (because he can't quite bring himself to call them _loveseats_ in this setting) that face each other where the wall meets the windows, and then lets herself out again, Matías also realizes that there's probably nothing in this office that can't be locked down to fingerprint. If only because there really isn't that much in this office at all. 

As he looks around, Matías tries. He really does. 

In context, it's just so expected, almost cliché, it's so on-the-nose, it's all kinds of that stuff. And he is in fact supposed to be good at reframing and re-setting ideas so he should be able to come up with something else almost as a point of pride. 

But when it comes down to it, the fact is that the best way to describe Maria Hill's office is, in fact, _spartan_. It really is. 

It's not as big as you'd expect, but it's big enough that the limited amount of furniture means that the strongest impression is _empty space_ \- deliberately empty space. The couches and what looks like a long settee near the window about halfway between the couches and the desk are almost the only non-utilitarian touches in the place. 

The only things on the walls are the same kinds of screens as are out in the lounge, four of them on the wall by the desk, which sits in the other corner of wall-and-windows. Here, they're just off, reflecting the office in a dark echo over the glass. Or whatever it is. 

The office is to the same palette as outside - so this is obviously Hill's preference - but the walls are maybe one step darker. There's a wide, square bamboo mat edged with canvas under the couches and another one under the desk, and Matías thinks the chair is one of the Herman Miller Embody chairs, possibly with some customization in the fabric. Or maybe a customized copy. 

Just behind the desk is a substantial floating shelf with what looks like a very swanky electric kettle, a medium-sized french press, a dark blue porcelain teapot, and several canisters of - presumably - coffee and tea. There's a matching mug on the desk. 

The desk is black wood with a top that looks like eggshell granite or some other kind of stone, but Matías is willing to bet is actually one of the touch-pad top things that seem to be an option here. There's a very thin keyboard and one huge flat monitor and then two sort of boxes where you'd expect old-style physical in- or out-boxes to go, except closed over. There is _zero_ clutter. 

There's one built-in full-wall bookshelf right by the couches, which appears to be 90% closed boxes like the ones on her desk, and then 10% the only other non-utilitarian touches of the room, which is an entire shelf of succulents in mismatched antique teacups, interspersed with tea-lights in stained-glass holders. 

Matías feels like there has to be a story behind that. He just can't for the life of him imagine what it could be. 

It occurs to him, just as the door opens, that the settee is just the right size and shape that if you flipped it open it could be hiding a small cot. For those nights when you just can't leave the office. 

Matías realizes - later, when he can think it all over, and also think back to the first times he ever saw her at the Insight Hearings, a distant and somewhat unreal figure at the heart of major Politics and Disasters - that there's this interesting clash to Hill. This . . . mismatch of input. 

Because on the one hand she's a dead ringer for Snow White, what with the dark hair and the perfect alabaster complexion, with the build and the being extremely beautiful. 

And then on the other it's hard to imagine Snow White as someone who can put more aggrieved contempt into a simple _sir?_ than an entire company comprised solely of insubordinate mavericks. Which Maria Hill did, repeatedly, even in the small fraction of the hearings that ever actually aired. 

In fact at one point she actually asked a Senator if he was suffering a recent traumatic brain injury, because she was having difficulty coming up with another explanation for the things he was saying. With exactly that contemptuous "sir?" stuck to the end of it. 

It means that if you actually try to mentally cast her as Snow White, you end up imagining that when Prince Charming shows up she'll end up demanding to know why the hell he thinks wandering around sexually harassing random women who are trying to take a goddamn nap is a good idea, and also what the hell a major player in the line of succession is doing riding around some fucking forest without guards like he's an idiot, and probably giving him a lecture on properly caring for his horse, and telling him that if this is how his kingdom's princes think you're supposed to wear a sword, she'd hate to think what else they're fucking up. 

And then probably taking his horse and his sword and leaving him there, while she goes to figure it out, and make it stop. Since he's clearly useless. 

And at no point will she even be outraged or really anything other than annoyed at incompetence and stupidity. 

It's very much a case of the whole being greater than the sum of any set of parts. Maria Hill doesn't dress particularly impressively - today she's got on black slacks and a dark-blue collared shirt, plain black half-boots (Matías guesses, from the shape) with heels just high enough to give what his uncle always calls the Heels of Authority sound on hard surfaces. She has the sleeves rolled up and the shirt buttoned to her sternum, and her hair's back in a loose-looking knot just underneath the crown of her head. She has small gold stud earrings and invisible makeup. None of it's particularly impressive. Put the same thing on any other woman and they'd be invisible. 

And compared to Grant's absolutely flawless-yet-effortless style, objectively, this is just the outfit of a woman who bought a whole bunch of basics for an office environment that wouldn't be uncomfortable to sit or move in. Yet on Hill they somehow become deliberate, or maybe even irrelevant. 

That strongly implies you could probably put this woman in a fuzzy housecoat with a duckling on the pocket and she'd still come off more or less exactly like she does now. Which is - Matías has zero problem with characterising it like this - _pretty damn intimidating_. 

Not hostile. But intimidating. 

Put her and Grant in the same frame, and Matías is pretty sure the force of personality involved would start feeling physical. 

He stands up as Maria Hill steps into her own office. 

Partially he does it for the same reason he stood up to say hello to Monique Grant, because he has literally never had the slightly old-fashioned manners his aunt and uncle trained him into lead him wrong; partially he does it out of a conscious desire to show some respect; and then partially he does it because the woman radiates a ten foot field that honestly feels like the equivalent of those moments someone says "Captain on deck" in both the old Star Trek episodes his uncle used to watch and the Age of Sail movies and shows his aunt was in love with. 

Except she doesn't need anyone to say it. Like not standing up is somehow unthinkable. 

She's obviously expecting to find him exactly where he is, and the handshake she offers is exactly the kind of firm that's reassuring without being even slightly competitive. She says, "Mr Ortiz," with the overtones of purely polite confirmation. Matías wonders if she'd be even the tiniest bit different if she'd walked in on Santa Clause doing yoga. 

"Director Hill," he returns, and he gets the slight sense that she finds that amusing. He waits for her to decide whether or not they're going to be on first-name terms: somehow correcting to _Matías_ outright feels like the kind of imposition that might somehow end up either being an insult, making him look bad, or both. He marks that to think about later, because he's not sure why. But again - there are some instincts he's just happy to trust. 

She does say, "Maria," though, with a slight gesture that's not quite a wave but has the same kind of dismissive feel. "While I honestly hope it's a while yet coming, I'm sure you've figured out that there _will_ be a point in the future where we're going to see a lot of each other and honourifics would get annoying." 

Matías gives a sort of half-shrug, hands open, acknowledging that. "Matías," he says, then, reciprocating. 

"Coffee?" Hill asks, crossing over to the shelf behind her desk with a glance over one shoulder and a gesture indicating he should sit back down where he was. 

All her movements are compact and directed, as spare as the room, without being stiff. Some people who wasted no movement were unnaturally and eerily still; others ended up seeming abrupt. Hill just seems like everything she does has a specific purpose, which is achieves, efficiently. Even if that purpose is 'a non-verbal cue for someone she just met to sit down and relax'. 

"If you're making," he says. "I don't want to impose on your time." He kind of wonders where the other mug is going to come from. He can only see the one. 

"For once in just about ever," she says, with a tight smile, "I actually have an hour with nothing in it." 

She hits a button on the kettle and Matías wonders if it's somehow plumbed into the wall, filling itself. Then she opens one of the larger tins and scoops grounds into the french press. "I was supposed to have a long-distance meeting, but the person I was supposed to meet with just had a daughter taken to hospital in Canada because of late-pregnancy complications, apparently." 

It turns out the other mug is going to come from a drawer in the desk that Matías didn't realize was there. Presumably there's some kind of refrigerating compartment or something around the same place, because she also pulls out a small bottle of cream. 

"That sounds horrible," Matías says, honestly, because it does. 

"And he was still going to try to dial in from the hospital," Hill says in a way that makes it clear she agrees about the horrible, and thinks that would have been a terrible idea. "And while it's not like I haven't had to deal with situations so life-and-death that something like that would be completely appropriate, this really isn't one of them. So that can happen some other time and right now, I can have coffee." 

The kettle boils incredibly fast. Somehow, Matías isn't surprised. 

Part of him wants to be incredibly nervous, and it's a pretty loud part, so he counters it by more or less just being very In The Moment, taking in everything and paying attention and trying not to let his mind wander too far away from right here and right now, lest he turn into a jumpy middle-schooler or something more embarrassing. 

Hill measures out coffee, asks him about what he takes in it, just puts some of the cream in hers. The press holds almost exactly two full mugs of coffee, and as she finishes pouring she asks, "So how are you handling it?" 

This is the kind of situation where it doesn't take a genius to figure out that absolute honesty is probably his best bet, so Matías shrugs. "Still kind of feel like I'm in a science-fiction novel," he admits. "I mean, that's also kind of ridiculous since aliens attacked a few years ago, but it's there." 

Hill gives that a smile that's brief, genuine, and just slightly mordant in its amusement, but doesn't interrupt. Matías goes on, "Other than that I keep having to remind myself there's a good reason that everything seems to be going unsettlingly well and it mostly has nothing to do with me, so I can keep from getting too superstitious about it." 

"Yolanda's someone I can rely on to have about as many backup-plans as I think she should have," Hill says, in agreement. She hands him his mug and he murmurs thank you, while she notes, "And as I'm sure you can imagine, that's a lot." 

Matías hesitates. He does. But after he takes a sip of coffee, he capitulates to the impulse to ask, "Is that a lead for me to ask about what kind of backup-plans might be in existence?" and the look that gets him from Hill is amused but not disapproving. 

"Do you want to know?" she asks, and whooo boy is that a loaded question coming from someone like her. There is probably a lot to the answer that a sensible person would want to keep in the realm of _plausible deniability_ and if he says yes, he's not going to have a passport for that particular nation. He'll be on to straight up lies. 

On the other hand . . . 

"Not that I want to put too much of a damper on your unexpected free hour," Matías admits, "but yeah, honestly, if you're willing to give me a run-down I think I'd be happier. I haven't asked Yolanda or anyone else, because it's clearly not on the immediate horizon," he elaborates, "unless something goes wrong and in that case it's an emergency situation which is something else entirely, and to tell you the truth, I'm still kind of processing the whole thing, but - " 

He hesitates, and settles on saying, "I think I've processed enough by this point to fully grasp the fact that the last two times anyone interfered with Captain America's best friend it lead to very large explosions which caused, to put it mildly, _considerable property damage_ , and I think he'd find out faster this time." 

Hill snorts softly, looking amused, but possibly actually approving, by now. 

Matías shrugs, with a self-deprecating half-smile. "I am willing to assume and take on a certain amount of faith that this kind of thing has been considered and planned for, but I would be lying if I said I wouldn't feel better knowing what those plans were." 

_And what kind of things they assume, what's being taken for granted, and how much absolute disaster they all imply is unavoidable,_ he adds silently. In short: what has he gotten himself into? 

"Good," Hill says, sitting back in the other couch and crossing one leg over the other. "That's smart. And I'm sure Yolanda's been walking the careful edge of making sure you know enough she doesn't feel like she's duped you about what you've been hired for - " 

" - while trying not to tell me so much I get scared and take off?" Matías finishes. He grins, a little. "Yeah, well. I mean I don't want to make myself sound like some kind of reckless idiot, but it'd take . . . let's just say it'd take a lot to make me take off." 

For just a second there's this look that's almost resignation on her face, like _almost_ the kind of look that comes before someone sighs and thinks oh-no-not-again. Maybe. But it's back to the brisk-but-thoughtful default in seconds, if so. 

"Plan A," she says, baldly, "is making things so obviously threatening that Washington as a whole decides to side-step everything and propose a permanent resolution that the relevant parties find acceptable. There's a lot of ways they could do that, so hopefully they'll pick one. And if that's the case hopefully we can address the public reveal angle on our terms, and over time." 

"How likely's that?" Matías asks, equally baldly, and Hill shrugs. 

"Impossible to tell," she replies. "We were figuring it was a long-shot before the election, and we were bracing for things to go _badly_ if Karlson took the presidency, but he didn't and this administration's still an unknown quality on a lot of fronts." 

Matías nods. He could also definitely see taking the whole situation off the backburner and onto high heat just not being a huge new presidential priority, and it wasn't like the FBI didn't have enough on its plate right now. 

"Plans B through L focus on relocation," Hill goes on, "with a ranked list of countries likely to provide a welcome, to tell Washington to go screw itself, and to have sufficiently functional intelligence and counter-intelligence apparatus to make dealing with any agents Washington might try to send less than _entirely_ our problem. Plans L and down focus on direct confrontation and taking steps to deny anyone access or opportunity to detain Captain Rogers or James Barnes." 

And the direct look she's giving him tells Matías she means exactly what he might think she means, down to StarkSec deployed to secure the Tower and not let, say, _the Army_ get in. 

Thinking about it is kind of its own shot of adrenaline as Matías finds himself spreading the possibility out. Trying to actually encompass that. Wanting to do it now, instead of having it creep up on him as a realization later, like it'd probably do otherwise. 

Truly digest that she does in fact mean armed confrontation with the United States government and that unlike - oh, say - the under-armed nutjobs of Waco and Ruby Ridge, there was no actual guarantee that SI would lose. 

Before the spring of 2014, he thinks, even a hint of something like this would have sent him running as fast as he could. And as far. Politely, so as not to leave bad feelings behind, but still: as fast and as far. 

Now, sitting here, the biggest thought in his mind is how it would only come to that if the government and law enforcement did try to do something that, quite frankly, would amount to a hideous miscarriage of justice at the _least_. And would kind of be a symbol of a lot worse, pretty easily. He finds he is surprisingly comfortable with it. 

It's amazing what small things can change your perspective, but he's gotta say, knowing what he now knows: his perspective is definitely changed. 

That does not mean he isn't kind of horrified to hear his own voice say, "I think I can spin that," which might be what he's thinking but is definitely not something he meant to say out loud, right here, in company. So he hears himself say it and thinks, in a strangled tone of mind, _Jesus fucking Christ what did I just say._

He's probably been cruising for it, he realizes, morosely. There's been a lot of stuff to process, a lot of stuff to encompass, in the last few days. He shouldn't be surprised to end up with exactly that kind of thing happening. But even so. _Even so_. 

It's a bit of a relief when Hill just bursts out laughing - a real, genuine, completely bright and amused laugh, one that makes her seem like Snow White all over again. Matías makes a play of rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment, even if the way his cheeks got hot and his heart stopped might've had more to do with sudden panic. 

"For the record," he says, as her laughter dies down, "I did not mean to say that out loud." 

"I could tell. It was the look of absolute terror that was funny," Hill replies, dryly. She shakes her head just a bit, dismissive. "If Ira, Leo and Yolanda didn't think you were up to it, they wouldn't've hired you," she points out, in a way that is actually kind of reassuring. "And trust me there are no plans to throw you, or anyone, out there to try and cover that one all alone. That," she says, and Matías strongly agrees, "would just be fucking stupid." 

 

They talk the whole thing over for another twenty, twenty-five minutes or so. And if there's still a feeling of unreality to discussing the whole thing, Matías can ignore it. 

He definitely gets the sense, not that Hill's testing or assessing him, but that she's already determined that either the assessment of others, the people who brought him in, is right, or it's wrong and she'll have to go for one of her backup-plans, and either way she'll burn that bridge when she gets there and isn't going to waste any effort on extra suspicion now. Like she trusts the people who chose him to fill a role, and she's slotting him right into it and proceeding accordingly. 

And if he turns out to be a disaster, she'll deal with it. 

That's the overwhelming feeling, he realizes. That's the thing that really radiates from the woman: whatever happens, she'll deal with it. And that's that. Disaster? She'll deal with it. End of the world? She'll deal with it. The Great Old Ones arising in the end of days? Well fuck, she'll deal with that too. 

Given that she's had to handle shit like alien invasions and sudden secret Nazi cells trying to use superweapons to take over the world, and all of them understaffed and under direct personal fire, that is probably fair, Matías supposes. You could get worse situations than those, but it'd be hard to get more _shocking_ situations than those. 

If Cthulhu did arise out of the squiddy depths tomorrow, how does that represent more of a total punch in the face to your previous reality than the Chitauri leviathans, or having to suddenly stop people from within your own organization from blowing up most of the eastern seaboard? 

If the Great Old Ones _did_ show up to devour mankind, she'd deal with it. Futile or not, she'd just deal with it. 

Matías wonders if Maria Hill does have backup-plans for Cthulhu. He wonders if it would be too weird to ask, and decides the answer is yes. 

As it's clear she's politely winding this conversation down, Hill says, "You're meeting Rogers tomorrow?" in a question that's not a question. 

"At ten, according to my calendar," Matías agrees. Hill nods. 

"Should be right," she says, in a way that gives Matías the strong impression she knows exactly what it is that meant that JARVIS pushed the appointment this far away from when it was originally going to be. 

He isn't gauche enough to ask. 

But after a second's hesitation, he does decide to ask a different question. 

"Any advice?" is what he says, because honestly if there's one thing he's kind of mind-blowingly nervous about in the here and the now, it's that. The other stuff might be terrifying, but it's a kind of slightly more distant, slightly more existential terror. 

This is about how he's meeting _Captain America_ , in person, tomorrow. And needs to come off like a competent professional. 

For the first time, Hill looks thoughtful in a way that implies she doesn't already know what she's going to say and is just picking a way to say it - almost distantly thoughtful for a minute and then focusing on Matías a bit more for another one before she says, with what might almost be a sigh, "Honestly?" 

She exhales a little heavily and says, "He's roughly the same age you are. Yeah, okay - he's ninety what the hell ever, but in terms of life he's actually been awake for? He might be younger than you."

Matías blinks. It takes him aback, not least because this is completely different from anything he thought she might say. He's not sure what he thought she might say but this . . . isn't it. 

Hill's gaze is level, and maybe a bit sad, at least for a blink of an eye. She continues, "The last time his life was what he grew up thinking of as _normal_ he was twenty-four. From his point of view, five years ago all but two of the people he'd ever known died, overnight. And of those two, one's still in the process of dying of old age, and the other one . . . " 

If it were another person you'd almost think she was hesitating, in that pause, but then " . . .changed a lot," is what she settles on saying. 

It's actually weird, Matías realizes, that he hasn't thought of all of that this way before - like, the whole displaced in time thing, sure, the whole far away from home and what's normal, for sure but not . . . that basically what it amounts to is, everyone you know died all at once. Was killed, all at once. 

"He has a _lot_ on his plate, and there's never been a single point in his life he got to learn how to do things _before_ being dumped in the middle of the shit he'd need to know how to do those things to survive, with pretty goddamn dire consequences if he fucks up. And _right_ now," she finishes, "I can tell you that he is not getting anything close to enough sleep." 

Matías realizes he's still blinking, stupidly, and makes himself stop. "I'll admit," he says, a little cautiously. "That's not what I expected." 

"I know," Hill replies, dead serious. "That's why I'm telling you. And I'm sure you can guess this _isn't_ stuff I normally throw around and draw attention to, but it's relevant to what you're going to be handling, both in the future _and_ right now, right here." 

Matías nods slowly as she says, "Steve threw a royal shit-fit about the branded merch because to him the Great Depression was killing people not much longer ago than yesterday and he woke up and overnight companies that worked people to death and threatened their grieving families were using his face to make money - not for a war effort against a genocidal enemy, not for the good of anyone else, but just to _make money_. Nobody thinks twice about it because it fits with their image, but I was at that meeting, and it wasn't a thought out, principled stand, it was someone really really damn angry because for him less than three years ago the people being exploited that way were his friends and his neighbours and he wanted it stopped now, and this was one thing he could actually throw a fit about and have changed, when everything else he hated about the here and now he mostly just had to sit and take." 

There's a flicker of humour, maybe, when she adds, "Which he isn't any good at, let me tell you." 

She leans back against the couch and leans her head on her right fist, her right arm propped along the couch's low back. "Everybody has a picture in their head for Captain America, but Captain America is a job Steve has to do sometimes and a responsibility he wouldn't know how to put down even if he thought he could," she says, and Matías thinks it's the first time he has ever heard a real person refer to the man just by his first name. "It'd probably be easier on both of you," she tells him, "if you make friends with Steve Rogers tomorrow, and let him leave Captain America at home." 

 

When he's back in his own office, Matías looks it up and Hill's right: if you count the years he's actually been conscious for, Steve Rogers is several years _younger_ than he is. 

It's actually more mind-blowing than he'd've expected, though he supposes that also makes a kind of sense: Captain America's been a grownup, and a grownup shaped like _authority_ , Matías' entire life. That's got an impact. So of course you end up thinking of him like he's actually as old as at least your parents, if not your grandparents. 

He's not, though. He's barely in his thirties. He's younger than Matías is. 

It does kind of change things.


End file.
